Steve Herter, who splits his time between Baja's East Cape and a ranch in Meeker, says of the roosterfsh: "This is a fish that's a noble beast. It demands respect. There is no other game fish like it."  (Photo by Bonnie Herter)
LOS CABOS, MEXICO The first order of business is designating the plugger.
It's an underappreciated position among the fraternal order of fly-casters, the one who foregoes the artistry of a hand-tied fly attached to the end of an elegant fishing lariat to huck a hunk of white plastic with aftermarket eyeballs out to sea in an effort to lure fish toward the beach.
As a result, though, he's everyone's best friend, the guy they want to saddle up with shoulder to shoulder in the hopes he performs his plugging with appropriate aplomb. Then they lean in and try to snatch his catch.
In any other setting, such shenanigans might be construed as unsportsmanlike. But it's all on the up and up while fishing for roosters from the beach. It's simply how the hardest game in fly-fishing is played.
"This is a fish that's a noble beast. It demands respect. There is no other game fish like it," said Steve Herter, the founder of several of Colorado's top fly-fishing lodges who now dedicates retirement to chasing roosterfish on Baja's East Cape. "You can't compare them, I guess, but for the drama and for the fight and for what a hard-won fish it is, it's the hardest one I've ever fished to. You have to put your time in to catch a good one.
"That being said, though, just being out there chasing them up and down the beach, that's exciting. I'd rather do that than almost anything else."
Herter's excitement over the noble roosterfish is palpable, gushing through his pores and across his vocals chords as the fish's trademark comb breeches the surf charging sardines in a shower of silver.
"There they are!" he'll shout from the white sand beaches near his home in Los Barriles. "Go get them!"
It is a chase in the most literal sense, a 9-foot rod in one hand and fly hook in the other, attempting not to impale a digit while racing barefoot up the beach. The plugger throws out his lure, cranking hard on the spinning reel to tease the school closer to shore as fly casters drop their own enticements into the fray and backpedal up the bank in an effort to add speed to the retrieve.
The pace is frenetic throughout a good spring day. Slower and more concentrated as precious daylight wanes this time of year. Yet, because of an unusually late northerly flow of current through the teeming aquarium that is the Sea of Cortez, fishermen making their way to Mexico's Baja California Sur are raving in unison about a November — and now December — to remember on both sides of the peninsula.
Pacific Ocean boat fishermen out of nearby Cabo San Lucas such as Thomas Schneider of Sunrise Anglers in Boulder were hauling in upwards of 20 roosterfish in four days just last week. The billfish count is hitting double digits worth of sailfish, striped marlin and blue marlin per panga boat in a single outing.
"I've been chasing (roosterfish) for a while, but this was definitely the most successful trip," said Schneider, who fished with Beto's Sportfishing out of the Cabo marina. "The water was so warm on the Pacific side, warmer than I can ever remember since 2001. It was like bath water."
The count will always be a bit lower off the beaches, even in the renowned rooster fishery surrounding the lighthouse of Punta Colorada, the easternmost point into the Sea of Cortez. It's a challenging game played in a delicate place, a battleground for development and conservation, that's considered hallowed soil among the purists because of its unique ability to attract large roosterfish among a myriad of other species within casting distance of a saltwater fly rod.
"There are very few places where they come onto the beach like this. This is the best beachline on earth for them," Herter said. "People ask, 'How many did you catch?' But it's not about that. This isn't an Alaska body count. It's the pursuit that's so incredible. We're literally running up and down the beach for these things. I've never had a fish that shakes my boots like this one. Once you start, you're hooked."